Big F'n Stick Build

[The_Phenx]

Big changes last night... and they are freaking awesome.

1. Radiance II staff...Its great.. on low hp mobs they just die.on high hp mobs... you get a crit... then they cant hit you cause they are blind... then the crippling stike makes them auto crit, then you can use whatever you want to finish them off...

2. I dumped stunning blow for slicing blow. Why? Radiance II is much more efficient and reliable vs. trash mobs... 10% chance (radiance) vs. 5% Stunning Blow. Slicing blow hits for 1pt of con damage (so hp loss from that)... then you get 6 tics of damage over 12 sec for 1d4 each...its a good bit of extra dps..and is a VERY nice addition for a clickie attack.

And yes the irony of using slicing blow with a staff has occured to me.

After all my playing this is going to be my permanent setup...just a great combo only need 1 more staff... Mineral II.. but thats gonna wait a while, where is my greensteel deconstruction... sigh...

The future plans?

Acrobat set from the new content...with +2 exception str... +1 exceptional dex... which I will be able to round out the enhancements to grab up a 30 str and 32 dex...still have work to do...

[Aerendil]

I REALLY wish Eladrin would give up the info. There are plenty of feats for dragonmarks, which I miss, but I like the extra dps better with thf...if you do 13/6/1 you can take all of the thf and dragonmarks... which could be a nice twist.

Yeah, the 13/6/1 split is tempting for the simple fact that I'd be able to pull off the full DMs + THF line, which is nice.
Then there's the minor extra bonuses such as squeezing out another point of AC (centered bonus at 5), possibly another from WIS II enhancement, an extra 2.5% haste in wind stance II, access to the finishers, and other goodies such as the cure disease/blindness etc. stuff.

But then, of course, if Acrobat III rocks, I'll be kicking myself
Grrrr.

PS - guys, I think the misspelling of "worc" in that previous post was intentional, as was the misspelling of "bild". Just so ya know..

*edit* - Shame that Breeze staff is a one-of-a-kind. Could you imagine if Monks or Monk/Rogues could just spec all Dex/Wis and get that kind of dps output in addition to an insane AC? Wow. Sick!

[The_Phenx]

Yeah, the 13/6/1 split is tempting for the simple fact that I'd be able to pull off the full DMs + THF line, which is nice.
Then there's the minor extra bonuses such as squeezing out another point of AC (centered bonus at 5), possibly another from WIS II enhancement, an extra 2.5% haste in wind stance II, access to the finishers, and other goodies such as the cure disease/blindness etc. stuff.

But then, of course, if Acrobat III rocks, I'll be kicking myself
Grrrr.

PS - guys, I think the misspelling of "worc" in that previous post was intentional, as was the misspelling of "bild". Just so ya know..

*edit* - Shame that Breeze staff is a one-of-a-kind. Could you imagine if Monks or Monk/Rogues could just spec all Dex/Wis and get that kind of dps output in addition to an insane AC? Wow. Sick!

I know.. the dex for damage thing is great, would casue a bit of re-specs for acrobats tho lol.

Leme know if your going to roll him up... I will lend you my lowbie staff if you promise not to bind or sell it

[VowWoefist]

Acrobat set from the new content...with +2 exception str...

Where does the exceptional STR +2 come from ? Is that what u get when u get the "potential" thing unlocked?

If so, that would be cool, since the bonus for the set giving added JUMP is just sooooo weak. And not sure how much the other bonus procs.

[The_Phenx]

Apparently yes.. the exceptional potential will give the ability to put 3rd tier shroud onto the rings (in most cases)

Sadly no one knows what the "unbalancing" will give...wether its similar to monks unbalancing strike or if it just gives a -2 to ac...

[Aerendil]

Sadly no one knows what the "unbalancing" will give...wether its similar to monks unbalancing strike or if it just gives a -2 to ac...

Yeah :/ We also don't know what TIER is required for these to kick in. Do you need to be Acrobat III for the unbalancing bonus to work? Or II? or merely I?

If just tier I, perhaps a Halfling 14 Monk / 6 Rogue Quarterstaff user would be an interesting concept using Unbalancing Strike (opponents suffer -10 to balance and prone to critical hits) + Acrobat set bonus + Breeze.

/shrug

[Tharlak]

Will the following change from the patch effect qstaff swing speed, reads like it does.

"All melee weapon styles (including one and two handed weapons) now have an identical number of (main hand) swings over time, except for the monk unarmed combat style (which has more attacks per minute than other attack styles). This is a significant boost to two handed weapons."

[VowWoefist]

Yeah, I would like to understand that better also Tharlak.

Also further explanation to this:
Glancing Blow and Off-hand attack hooks have been shifted around to compensate for these changes. Staves are now treated identically to other two handed weapons for glancing blow hooks.

Maybe Phenx or anyone else could give a plain English description of these changes overall and how they might affect this build. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

[The_Phenx]

I will test it tonight... my guess is we got additional attacks built into the chain... more speed... and 1 additional glancing blow per animation sequence... very excited. (for instance the first swing for a twf generates two attacks).

And update on slicing blow for anyone thinking of taking it... there is a small bug... I am still going to keep the feat, but it will not damage certain mobs, (hits most) but the con damage still applies... (still standing by it as an awesome clickie attack) very odd...generating a thread now about it over in combat.

[Aerendil]

Also further explanation to this:
Glancing Blow and Off-hand attack hooks have been shifted around to compensate for these changes. Staves are now treated identically to other two handed weapons for glancing blow hooks.

Well, the way it previously worked was that two-handed weapons would get their glancing blows checks on a certain animation (either #1 or #2, I forget which). Quarterstaves were different for whatever reason in that the glancing blow check would occur later in the animation sequence (animation #4 I think?).

Needless to say someone with a greataxe would previously do glancing blows sooner than a quarterstaff user would.
In theory, that should be changed now.
So as soon as you jump into a group of monsters, you're now going to be doing glancing blows asap - so just a heads up on that.

[VowWoefist]

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah Phenx would be nice to know what u find out running tests.

I presume then that we get glancing blows on swings 1 and 4, then if u have GTHF u also get it on swing 3 - that is what Eladrin clarified in other thread.

[The_Phenx]

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah Phenx would be nice to know what u find out running tests.

I presume then that we get glancing blows on swings 1 and 4, then if u have GTHF u also get it on swing 3 - that is what Eladrin clarified in other thread.

Yep so we go from 1 or 2 glance to 2 or 3 respectively.. which is a very nice change, and when using madstone or DP clickies you will get more attacks in in less time, and loose the silly slow (but cool looking) 5th swing.

[The_Phenx]

Ok so I took Preying out for a spin tonight... the changes are weird.

He took a bit of a dps loss...since he didnt have the fifth attach animation yet the effect was merely a overall slowing of what was his normal attack chain. Compartively it seemed like the same as being unhasted with airstance off (before the change), roughly a 10% loss.

Divine power brought it back up some however... and with the clickies lasting 1:04 sec its a little more efficient than it used to be.

That being said the extra glancing blow was very nice.. and I am shure the 3rd when I get 18th will be even cooler. GTHF should give 3 glancing blows at about 22 pts per hit...wish we knew what the proc rate for effects was.

So some sad news.. some good.. but when hasted and boosted the slowing wasn't nearly as noticeable overall. We will try and get some official #rs on attacks per min standard hasted and boosted in the next week or two.

And the Radiance II staff continues to amaze ... definately I should have been using all along.

[Dark-Star]

I have Acrobat II on my Hurt Locker build (see sig), and it seemed to me the q-staff swing speed was a good bit slower. Also didn't the patch say that all two handed weapons swing at the same speed now? If so, then q-staves, which were the fastest two hander, got nerfed.

I haven't counted attacks per minute yet, but I am sure someone will.

[The_Phenx]

They definately got nerfed. Sadly

They still will be the fastest THF since acrobat gets the swing speed bonuses...and the extra glancing blows will help negate things a bit...

I am going to test swing speed on sat AM... so I will update then.

[rest]

And the Radiance II staff continues to amaze ... definately I should have been using all along.

Told ya

[The_Phenx]

Told ya

Ya Ya Ya...wanna cookie to anyone keeping up with these builds it is the way to go.

After having tested Lightning II, 3x Acid Earthgrab, Weighted 5% w/stuning blow, the radiance is by far the best trash mob stick I have used.

[The_Phenx]

Well...

BOOOO HISSSSS

The swing speed is down from 147 attacks a min to....

132 (as best as I could count with a stopwatch)

These are fully hasted and boosted w/divine power of course...

however you do get +1 glancing blow per attack animation chain.

Sad times... I hope Eladrin gets the animation speeds back up there, but I think we will still see a small nerf from the speed equalization(kinda since we do get more glances now).

I took Greater Two Handed Fighting... kicks but... Glancing blows vary from 13-22 depending on the buffs you have going... and you get 3 per attack chain... red numbers everywhere ... wheeeeee

[QuantumFX]

I took Greater Two Handed Fighting... kicks but... Glancing blows vary from 13-22 depending on the buffs you have going... and you get 3 per attack chain... red numbers everywhere ... wheeeeee

But are you getting sneak attack dice on those glancing blows?

[The_Phenx]

Not that I have seen... the numbers roll by pretty quickly...they can be kinda hard to keep track of.. but I will test tonight and see if it lists it in the combat log...

I have seen someone get blinded off a glance however.

Putting a 28 pt build section in the main post... getting a lot of pm's about it.